Random Thanksgiving Post

27 November, 201426 November, 2014Marissa

Happy Thanksgiving to all my blog readers! I have much to be grateful for this year, and I’m sure many of you do as well. You can share some of your “thanksgivings” in the comments, if you like. Here’s a few of mine:

I’m thankful for my family and friends. A few years ago, I didn’t know many of the friends I have now (including several of you, dear readers) and I’m so grateful to have wonderful people in my life.
I’m grateful that my 16-year-old cat recovered from a serious illness so well that he now looks and acts healthier than he has in years.
I’m thankful that I’m still on-track to finish NaNoWriMo even after having pneumonia.
I’m grateful that people in our country still think it’s important to take a day of Thanksgiving. Though it’s just “turkey day” to some, there’s plenty of good people out there who remember why we’re spending a day giving thanks.

I found an article from 2011 collecting different quotes from American presidents about Thanksgiving. Thought I’d share a few that I liked:

Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be — That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks — for his kind care and protection of the People of this country previous to their becoming a Nation.” (George Washington, 1789)

“Rarely has any people enjoyed greater prosperity than we are now enjoying. For this we render heartfelt thanks to the giver of Good; and we will seek to praise Him, not by words only, but by deeds, by the way in which we do our duty to ourselves and to our fellow-men.” (Theodore Roosevelt, 1902)

“Let us ask the Divine Blessing on our decision and determination to protect our way of life against the forces of evil and slavery which seek in these days to encompass us. On the day appointed for this purpose, let us reflect at our homes or places of worship on the goodness of God and, in giving thanks, let us pray for a speedy end to strife and the establishment on earth of freedom, brotherhood, and justice for enduring time.” (Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1941)

“The blessings that are ours must be understood as the gift of a loving God Whose greatest gift is healing. Let us join then, with the psalmist of old: ‘O give thanks to the Lord, call on His name, Make known His deeds among the peoples! Sing to Him, sing praises to Him, tell of all His wonderful works! Glory in His holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice!'” (Ronald Reagan, 1987)

And here’s a link to an article for all my introverted friends wondering how they’ll survive the social getting-together that happens on Thanksgiving: 9 Quick Tips to Save Your Sanity This Thanksgiving. Just remember — occasionally needing a break from your families doesn’t mean you don’t love them. It means you like them enough to give yourself the space you need so you don’t get cranky and take it out on them.

This is turning into a thoroughly random blog post, but why stop now? I tried a new recipe this Thanksgiving: Pumpkin Snickerdoodles. My sister has discovered Pinterest, so she sends me all the food she thinks looks good in the hope that I’ll make it for her. Snickerdoodles are my favorite cookie, so I decided to try this one. The addition of pumpkin adds a unique spin on the flavor that’s perfect for fall. I’ve linked to the recipe so you can try them out yourself, or at least stare at the delicious pictures.

And lastly, a shameless plug for my Etsy shop. The Geek Spa is having a Black Friday sale. Use code “BlackFriday” for 20% off now through Monday.

A Trip to the Zoo

3 November, 20142 November, 2014Marissa

I have two reason why you’re getting a rambling post about how I spent yesterday rather than a nice, neat article:

1) NaNoWriMo

50,000 words in 30 days = one novel, and not much sleep. I’ve done it twice before, and I’m trying again this year with a Young Adult novel full of super humans (click to visit my writer’s website). I’m prepared with enough Lindt hazelnut truffles to reward myself every 5,000 words (plus a few extras, just in case).

2) Zoo Day!

Months ago we got half-price tickets to the Columbus Zoo, and just never seemed to find time to use them. Then we realized they expired in February, and it wasn’t getting any warmer, so we went yesterday. It was so cold that most of the South-Asian and African animals weren’t out, but the predators were very active.

the Amur leopards were moving too fast for my camera

Very, very active, in some cases. The brown bears were chasing each other all over their exhibit, my family saw a tiger try to pounce on one guy through the glass, and there was a cheetah stalking a child being pulled in a wagon.

We also saw an extremely rare creature — an awake koala. They sleep 22 hours a day if given the chance, and I think this is the only time I’ve ever seen one moving.

I’d say the dinosaurs were even more rare, but they weren’t moving much. Didn’t even try to snatch a tourist out of the boat ride, so I suspect they were animatronic.

The aquarium in Columbus might not be huge by public aquarium standards, but it’s certainly one of the most impressive at a zoo. I love the manatees. Columbus and Cincinnati are the only aquariums in the U.S. outside of Florida that help with manatee rescue and rehabilitation.

And last but not least … I found a yurt!

yurt, a.k.a. one of the cutest structures known to man

Blog Updates

1 October, 201430 September, 2014Marissa

Some of you probably noticed there wasn’t a recipe post last week. There’s not one today, either. I want to start to focus this blog a bit more narrowly, and spend more time writing e-books and fiction. I’ll probably still post recipes as I find some that I want to share, but there will no longer be one every Wednesday.

I want to make this blog more helpful to my readers. Most feedback I receive has been on my posts about personality psychology and Christianity. With that in mind, the Christian-themed posts will continue every Saturday, and my immediate goal is to finish and release the INFJ e-book I announced a few months ago (it’s mostly finished, but you still have time to contribute if you like. Click the link for more information).

I’ve also been working for a couple years on a high school English curriculum for homeschoolers. My younger brother is working through it now (it’s great — I get someone to test my curriculum, and I’m being paid in books for teaching his English class). My goal is to make it flexible enough that parents can tailor the assignments for different students’ learning styles and personalities. If all goes well, the freshman course will be out in a year or so.

If you have any thoughts, comments, or suggestions, please share. My goal is to write things that you want to read, and I like to know if I’m on the right track 🙂

One Tasty Sandwich and A Tale of House-sitting

9 July, 20148 July, 2014Marissa

I spent most of the past week house-sitting for my Uncle, which largely involved spending time with his crazy animals. I’d thought the dogs (which I’d heard horror-stories about) would be the problem, since I don’t really care for dogs and I was a bit afraid of them. But they were perfect sweet-hearts while I was there (though right after I left they killed a skunk and rolled in it to prepare for my uncle’s home coming). It was the cats that almost drove me crazy.

I love cats. I think they are adorable. Just for the record, I still think that after spending the week with Nosey Dude and Remy (aka Hoodwinked or whatever you feel like calling him at any given moment). It’s just that they tried my patience a little. I was warned not to bother closing the bedroom door because Remy has figured out door knobs. So I left the door open, and Nosey demonstrated how aptly he was named by coming in to check on me every three hours. By “check on me” I mean pounce on my head (he must weigh 20 pounds) and walk around the pillow crying for attention. I managed to barricade the door on subsequent nights.

Remy has also figured out cupboard doors. I heard weird noises from the kitchen all week, and finally caught him sliding into the cupboard where clean dishes are stored. Yuck! I also found him knocking a knife from the counter to the floor. Not sure I want to know what his plans were for that.

Both cats were very talkative, and very interested in the kitchen. They were constantly telling me how hungry they were, and though they looked like they should be on a diet I did feed them three times a day as instructed (with a couple tiny little scoops in between. I’m a sucker for begging kitties). I didn’t spend much time cooking for myself, preferring to take advantage of the alone time to write. One thing I did whip up was a tasty sandwich. It’s not exactly my normal recipe type of post, but that’s what I’m going to share today.

I started by seasoning a piece of chicken with McCormic’s Grill Mates Montreal Chicken spice that I found in the cupboard. Then I just fried it in a thin layer of oil, like I do for Mushroom-Herb Chicken and Thai-Peanut Chicken.

I’d brought some lettuce from home, and stopped at Meijer to pick up Swiss cheese (I could only find slices, which was convenient but why were there no bricks of Swiss cheese?), multigrain ciabatta rolls, and Olive Oil mayonnaise (which I’ve been wanting to try, since I’m a big fan of olive oil).

It all turned into a nice sandwich, particularly tasty with a juice smoothie on the side. I’ve developed a passion for Naked juice, particularly the Mighty Mango variety (though with this particular lunch I was trying out Strawberry Banana).

My Hair is a Sign?

7 July, 20143 February, 2021Marissa

As I’ve written before (see post “Breeding Red-heads“), my sister and I receive quite a number of comments on our red hair. These range from complementary to inappropriate; from harmless to creepy. I was starting to think I’ve heard at least one variation on most of the types of comments that people might make. This weekend, however, proved me wrong. My sister and I were visiting a Messianic group to spend Shabbat with them. The meeting hall for our regular church group has gotten so bad for my allergies that I can’t go back until they find a new building (I only stayed 10 minutes last time, and still my sister had to drive me home). I don’t want to be without fellowship, though, so I’m visiting other local Sabbath-keeping groups. Anyway,we were talking with a man who’d just introduced himself, and the conversation turned to our hair. There was much chattering and background noise, so I’m not entirely sure I caught all the conversation, but here’s the gist of what he said:

It’s so nice to see red-heads. So rare. Did you meet Emily? Yes? she dyed her hair red when we heard redheads will be extinct by 2050. To show she supported you. We never meet many red-heads you know? and now you are here, it’s a sign. For Jews, things happen in threes. Signs, you know? So Emily dying her hair was the first sign, and now two red heads appear here in our group. You are a sign!

Well, that’s the first time I’ve been called a sign. I have no idea what we might be a sign of, but he seemed pretty positive that’s what we were. (BTW, the red-head extinction theory is — thankfully — bogus.)

Goals, Growth, and a Happy Birthday to Me

30 June, 201429 June, 2014Marissa

Today is my 25th birthday. Other than posting this, my birthday plans involve spending time with family and eating cheesecake. My original idea for this post was to write one of those “Letter To Me” things addressed to my 15 year old self (since 10 years is a nice round number). Part of that’s still here, but it’s not the focus. Why? because while a post all about me could be mildly entertaining, I doubt anyone will find it helpful. Instead, I want to encourage you to join me in thinking about how you’ve changed in the past ten years, and what you want the next 10 years to look like.

If you’re like me, looking at a more narrow time frame of your life to inspect how you’ve changed can be disheartening. I don’t usually feel like I’ve made much progress in a week or a month or sometimes even a year on things like personal growth, forwarding my publishing goals, and growing my business. But look at 10 years, and you can see how much you’ve accomplished, some of it in little steps that you probably didn’t notice when you were walking them. "Happy Birthday To Me" marissabaker.wordpress.com

10 Years Ago

I tried to look back at my journal for the year I turned fifteen, but the only entry between November 2002 and June 2006 is an undated poorly-spelled complaint about not having many friends or knowing how to talk to people. It does look like a clump of pages was torn out, but I don’t remember why. Even without a record of my precise thoughts, though, there are plenty of specific things I remember that are pertinent to how much I’ve changed. Setting aside the potential implications contacting your past self might have on the time-space continuum, here are a couple suggestions I’d share with me then:

Dear 15-year-old-me,

Stop reading the Thoroughbred book series right now. I mean it — take that stack beside your bed back to the library immediately. Why? because you’re going to feel guilty when you turn sixteen without having ever been asked out on a date, because some of the characters teased Christina for turning “sweet sixteen and never been kissed.” Which is just plain ridiculous. And speaking of kissing, stop reading the Hardy Boy/Nancy Drew cross-over books as well. You don’t have to be 5′ 3″ and taste like mint for a guy like Joe Hardy to like you (and do you really want him to? this version is kissing a different girl in every book). Honestly, you have poor taste in fictional men. Go read Jane Austen.

Be nicer to your siblings. My brother asked me to include this, but he’s right. They’ll still be some of your best friends when you’re 25, and if you’d treated them as well as they deserved you’re probably all be even better friends. And on the subject of friends, don’t give-up because you can’t seem to make any new ones. You haven’t even met the person who will become your best-friend-who’s-not-a-sibbling yet.

Love,

25-year-old-me

When I was fifteen, I was still convinced that I didn’t need a plan for after high school because within a few years I was going to meet Prince Charming and live happily ever after. Aside from reading and my homeschool work, the only thing I really had interest in was gardening (I ran a little roadside greenhouse selling plants for two years in high school). I hadn’t even started writing yet (I mean, not seriously writing. I would jot down ideas), or really even cooking. Now I list writing and cooking as two things I can’t imagine not doing, largely because I love them so much.

What important aspects of your life now were missing 10 years ago?

Now

One thing I haven’t touched on yet is my spiritual walk. I knew at 14 that I wanted to be baptized, but I couldn’t find a minister who didn’t think I was too young. Which I probably was, but I was pretty sure of my faith when I turned 15. Without getting into too much details, that changed after I graduated high school. While I never actually left “the church,” when I again decided to be baptized at 19 it felt almost like coming back, and I’ve seen tremendous growth since then. Not, like, all the time of course — I have plenty of set-backs and doubts like everyone else, but I also think recognizing the fact that we’re nowhere near perfect and we can’t move toward perfection without God is a huge step towards spiritual growth.

How is your spiritual growth now different than it was 10 years ago?

As you all know if you’ve been reading this blog on any kind of a regular basis, my writing is now a huge part of my life (this blog, fiction, and copywriting). I love to cook and bake. I have an outlet for sharing my faith. I have a few close, stable friendships with dear people who I hadn’t even met 10 years ago and now can’t imagine life without.

Have you met any people who are now your “best friends” within the past 10 years?

Oh, and regarding the whole panic-about-not-having-a-boyfriend thing, I’ve still never been in a serious relationship and I’m actually okay with being unmarried at 25. I still want to get married, but I know that I wasn’t really ready for that kind of commitment during the time frame I was expecting marriage to happen and I’m willing to entertain the possibility that the same thing is true now. More importantly, I’ve actually started turning over my worries about the timing for this and other goals to God.

10 Years Ahead

Where do you want to be in 10 years?

My first impulse to this question is, “I have no idea.” I didn’t plan 10 years ago to end up where I am today, and I don’t really know if having a 10 year plan now would be any more advantageous. But I keep hearing about the importance of having a vision for your future, finding your passion, planning a life mission. And I can see the advantages.

In my life, the time period where I’ve felt most productive was my last three years of college. I had a goal (graduate with Latin honors and research distinction in my major), and I worked toward it. The more focused I got on projects, the more productive I was. For example, November 2011 I was was doing the final editing and writing on my thesis, wrote a 50,000 word novel for NaNoWriMo, and taking a full class load that included French (my hardest subject). I was exhausted by the end of the month, but I felt great (and yes, I met those academic goals next year when I graduated).

That’s kinda missing now, and it’s not a good thing. I don’t like being unfocused and not having a more definite goal to work toward. My faith provides a goal for spiritual growth toward eternal life, but it’s also supposed to be an integral part of my life and keep me moving forward personally and professionally as well. I need a direction on a physical level to go along with my direction on a spiritual level.

For my readers who are MBTI fans, personality type plays a role as well — INFJs like me must have a goal. We hate not having something clear (and preferably world-altering) to work toward. So, yea. Making better goals is next on my list.

What steps can you take now to move forward with focus and purpose into the next 10 years?